CRESTWOOD— Understandably, there were some heads hanging as South Oldham’s football team gathered in the end zone.

Melanie Rice/Special to The Oldham Era

Senior Jacob Lamb is quickly tackled after a catch in the second quarter.

The Dragons had just been outplayed and lost 42-22 to Conner on homecoming night. Coach Jaime Reed tried to make sense of it while addressing his players.

“Our effort is there, sometimes it’s not,” he told the team. “There’s a lot more questions than answers right now.”

It was a snowball effect that began at the end of the first quarter. South Oldham marched down on its first drive, which ended with a one-yard touchdown leap over the line by senior running back Michael Gray.

But after forcing Conner to go three and out, senior running back Steward Williams fumbled the pitch from junior quarterback Jack Sherry at his own 31-yard line in the middle of the first quarter,

That blunder led to a Cougars touchdown with 4:24 left in the quarter. Conner then successfully recovered an onside kick down the left sideline and answered with another touchdown four plays later on a 31-yard run by junior running back Cameron Fogle.

A recurring theme of the night would continue to be big runs by Fogle and sophomore quarterback Drew Barker, with little resistance from the Dragons.

“We knew what they were doing, we jut didn’t wrap up and tackle,” senior defensive back Jacob Lamb said. “We didn’t stick to our assignments.”

On offense, Sherry had trouble getting things in a rhythm as well outside of that first drive. There was also a fumbled handoff on a reverse to Williams in the second quarter and a fumbled handoff to senior running back Roger Johnson in the third quarter. Sherry had two incompletions on fourth downs as well.

“We started getting too creative,” Sherry said. “We got sloppy, because that first drive, we thought we were just gonna drive the ball down the field. We started doing things uncharacteristic of our offense.”

Improvements have to be made all over the field, but Reed said the primary ones are fairly simple.

“You turn it over four or five times, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing, you’re gonna have a hard time beating East Oldham,” he said. “We can’t turn the ball over on offense and we’ve gotta stop people on defense. That’s as basic as it gets.”

With his players gathered around him after the game, Reed laid out the options ahead. At 3-3, the season is far from over. But the next three games are all district games, the next being against Grant County at 7:30 p.m. Friday at home.

“We can fold up or we can try to get second place in the district,” Reed told the team. “I don’t have the answers for you right now, but we won’t let you quit.”